History, doctrine, culture, books

Newsweek Backstory

Elise Soukup, the LDS journalist who authored "Mormon Odyssey," the recent Newsweek story on the LDS Church, has given a couple of interviews that are available online. I think the interviews are more interesting than the story! One is a transcript of a live exchange between Soukup and various listeners who submitted questions, posted online at MSNBC. She fielded questions on Joseph as polygamist, on Joseph's methods of translation (which didn't involve looking at the plates through the Urim and Thummim), and on her interview with Grant Palmer (which, unfortunately, didn't make it past editing into the published story). The second interview was by Ryan Bell over at M-Star (a blog, not a tabloid), where Soukup talks about some of the angry mail she's gotten since the story, her experience interviewing three apostles as part of her story, and what she learned about Joseph Smith while researching the story. I think Soukup comes across as bright, clever, and witty in the interviews. FWIW, I wrote my earlier Newsweek post before I realized the author was LDS.

Mormon Books 2013-14

Parley P. Pratt: The Apostle Paul of MormonismGivens and Grow's warts-and-all biography of this energetic missionary, author, and apostle whose LDS career spanned Joseph Smith's life, the emigration to Utah, and Brigham Young's early leadership of the Church in Utah. My Review